


Empty Spaces

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:26:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After losing everything, Derek gains a pack and something else he did not expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Spaces

Stiles meets a broken boy.  
No, a man.  
No, he's still a boy. He slams into him or maybe he gets slammed into, it's hard to tell. The point is, they slam into each other.  
He finds a broken boy and a broken man finds him.

One day the boy turns to him and asks Stiles why he's stayed. Stiles gives him a look and the man feels like he's missed a bigger piece of a puzzle he didn't realize he was in the middle of solving. Stiles stares for a few more seconds and asks incredulously, “You really think I could leave you?”  
\---  
It's so stupid when Stiles really thinks about it. Derek is rude. Okay, he's not rude, he's just 'off putting.' It’s not the same thing. He's sometimes too gruff, too eager to shove people into the nearest wall. People seem to love him anyway. They know he’s not rude, can see that there’s something else deep down inside. They just keep coming back for more torture. Stiles knows from experience. 

Derek doesn't really know how to do feelings. It's like he felt too hard, too early and now he thinks he's all used up, like his heart is spent or something. Stiles sees him though. He sees him when no one is watching and he sees how much he cares. Behind the sniping and aggressive bossiness, there's this boy who loves his friends.

The pack keeps showing up at this old house, sitting on rotting wood floors, playing card games and drinking beer. Sometimes as night falls and the place hums with the sounds of cicadas and that deep smell of petrichor, they stay. Later than Derek said he wanted when they all first crammed themselves in his space, but now Derek isn’t saying anything. Jackson begins to loosen up and even Lydia seems less prim as she leans back against Allison's chest. Hell, even Scott seems to get less stupid as the night wears on but Stiles thinks that might be his fifth beer talking. Then he sees Derek sitting across from him, relaxed, almost smiling and when Jackson cracks a crude joke Derek huffs out a laugh and shakes his head.

He's an alpha and this is his pack. He is a man who lost everything and had what little he had left after that ripped from him. He is bitter. He is angry.

Most of all, he is a boy and he looks the most at ease when his friends are there in his home, scattered about on sleeping bags in the floor. They all become drowsy and light conversation turns to murmured stories and they share themselves. Each sleepy word makes a home in someone else. Stiles sees Derek quietly drinking it in. Derek who argued against every sleeping bag on that floor, Derek who’s taking up the couch instead, slouching towards the floor. 

Then one night they're all jammed into sleeping bags, fighting off the unseasonal chill. Lydia and Allison have zipped their pink and green sleeping bags together, Allison curled up around Lydia, holding her tight to her chest. Jackson and Scott have created some disturbing two-wolf puppy pile and just threw both of their sleeping bags on top of themselves. Derek is passed out on the sofa under a giant quilt and Stiles stays up late on his laptop. Eventually, he lays down inside his sleeping bag and tries to get warm. He can't seem to get comfortable and after ten minutes of tossing and turning, Derek snaps at him,.“Stiles. Can you just try to stay still?”

Stiles replies with a mumbled whine about being too cold and the floor being too hard and damp. He hears Derek fumbling around on the couch and opens his eyes. Derek has his back pressed to the couch and is holding up his blanket like an invitation for Stiles to crawl in. Stiles stares at him blankly for a few seconds before Derek scowls, rolls his eyes and snaps, “Just get over here.”

Stiles crawls under and the older man arranges him so their legs tangle up pleasantly and he wraps an arm around Stiles' waist, spreading his hand out over his ribs. Stiles sighs and blurts out a nervous stream of words, “This is nice. New, but nice. Kind of confusing. You know, since now we're at that whole is-this-a-friendship-cuddle or did-you-want-my-ass-against-your-crotch-and-will-you-want-to-do-this-again situation. Not that it's just about ass to crotch, I mean you're comfy for a big guy. I mean, you're warm. Because it's cold. Which means this is purely situational and incidental so it's the beginning and end of the era of Derek and Stiles cuddles. Answered my own question, I love it when I do that. Shutting up now.”

Derek is quiet and his breathing is even, but Stiles knows he's awake because he's still holding him tight, like he's trying to keep Stiles together or something. Stiles lets the embarrassment pass and is about to fall asleep when Derek mumbles, “Would you?”

Stiles stills, “Would I what?”

“Want to do this again?” Derek squirms a little which is out of character and a little disconcerting because it means he's uncomfortable.

“Have another pack slumber party and freeze my ass off while everyone else spoons until you feel guilty and have to keep me warm all night? No. I won't put you through the torture, don't worry about it.” Stiles yawns and starts to doze off a little. Derek presses his hand against Stiles' chest, almost like an affectionate touch, but too tentative to be a pat or caress.

Derek replies after a few seconds, “I mean, would you want to do this again, repeatedly. With me.”  
Stiles smiles a little and sighs, half asleep, “Yeah. Sure. Signed, sealed, delivered. It's a lifetime contract though. You did yourself in with that one.”  
\--  
Derek knows he's a survivor. He knows he's not too shitty of an alpha, if only because of his domineering and assertive personality. He knows he is bitter and angry.

Then these kids keep showing up at his house and now he spoons a boy and touches his lips to the nape of his neck when he thinks he's asleep. He lets the kid have free reign of the house when he shows up with some big idea to 'renovate and make it home!' and he doesn't flinch or tense when Stiles taps him on the arm fondly as he walks by. 

Derek knows he's somehow gained something. The things he's lost weren't returned to him and they never can be, but somehow, he's not empty anymore.

Derek doesn't know he's still a kid too. He's a boy who needs what the rest of them need. He needs warmth, he needs attention, he needs love. He needs people to fill the rooms of his home and make him smile when they wake up on his living room floor, bleary eyed and arguing over who's going to go get breakfast for everyone. 

He needs Stiles who makes him feel okay about pouring out stories and thoughts late at night on the couch when everyone else is curled up in their blankets. He needs the teasing and the blunt statements Stiles blurts out on a whim. He needs the honesty and the openness.

Sometimes Stiles sees Derek better than Derek sees himself. He broke into this guy and filled up his insides and dusted all the rooms in his heart that Derek hadn't tended in years. Then he filled the rooms with light and good things, and he made Derek live in the rooms. Stiles sees what he needs, so he gives it freely.

Stiles met a broken boy or maybe the boy just slams into him or maybe he broke down the boy's walls, or maybe he just fixed his old ones. It's hard to tell how it happened. The story changes every day. He met this man and saw that he could fit, so he made himself a stowaway and began to foster good things in Derek's empty rooms.

Derek didn't become a man because he was forced to grow up too early. He didn't grow because he lost all he had and suffered. He didn't become a man through the bitterness or anger he held onto. He began to grow once another boy found him (or snuck in?) and started to fill his empty spaces.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd and coaxed into creation by [Rosali](youshatteredmyshatner.tumblr.com). Check her stuff out [here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantwings/).


End file.
